


Saturdays

by Caledonia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys In Love, Closeted Character, Dancing, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Homophobia, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caledonia/pseuds/Caledonia
Summary: Sunday through Friday Arthur and Merlin inhabit an oppressive world of denial, anxiety, and too much reality.But Saturdays.Oh, Saturdays…





	Saturdays

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin and I'm not making any money from this work.

First you have Merlin. The shy kid with few friends. Impossibly skinny with dark blue highlights in his black hair, chewed fingernails stained with paint and ink. Only willing to have conversations about art or music or obscure foreign language films. Merlin, with his family's hopes pinned exclusively on his future success. Merlin, who doesn't seem like he is struggling under the pressure, but who is denying himself and his wishes and his true nature to please his mother and uncle. Who knows his mother wants nothing more than to be a grandmother, and is therefore planning to marry a girl and have a family despite the fact that he is gay, and already in love with a man.

Then there is Arthur. The golden child, wildly popular, classically handsome, blond hair and striking features. Athletic and intelligent, rich, but surprisingly generous. Arthur, who is friendly and outgoing, and will hold a conversation with anyone about any topic. Arthur, whose father is a severely conservative politician. Arthur, who knows what is expected of him, and knows that he will comply, even though it feels like he is dying inside every time he is forced to agree with his father. Arthur, who will woo and wed the girl his father has chosen for him, even though he is gay, and already in love with a man.

That is Arthur, and Merlin, Sunday through Friday. Denial and exasperation and anxiety and too much reality.

But Saturdays.

Oh, Saturdays…

Saturdays had always been different. Saturdays had always been _theirs_. They had always found a way to be together on Saturdays, somehow, without letting anyone get suspicious. They got jobs in the same shops. They joined the same clubs or teams or anything at all that meant they could be in the same place. At first it was unconscious, but they both knew. Of course they knew. They knew, and they had Saturdays to prove it.

And since they turned eighteen, Saturday nights were for going out. It wasn't unheard of, all their friends went to pubs, afterall. But Arthur and Merlin went out dancing. They would meet at the club because that made it even more exciting, stumbling into each other on the dance floor as though they hadn't been expecting to see the other person there at all. The music pounding through them like a second heartbeat, their bodies twisting together, skin touching, hips locked. The lights casting a surreal glow over them both, shining off sweaty skin and gleaming in eyeliner encircled blue eyes. Hands hungry, eyes half-closed, heads tilted back. The brazen feel of lips on exposed necks, the audacity of it all, being together like this with everyone's eyes on them, glorious in each other's arms, unwilling to acknowledge so much as a breath of the outside world.

They would drink and dance and kiss and writhe and forget about everyone and everything else. They would ignore the trembling fault line beneath them. Merlin's artist residency in France, Arthur's internship. Their family's expectations. The crushing weight of the unknown future. For those four hours on a Saturday none of it mattered.

They could be strangers who had only met that night. They could both be openly gay instead of still hiding and denying their proper selves. They could exchange numbers and meet up and have a real date and blush and buy flowers and get nervous to meet parents. They could move in together and adopt a pet from a shelter and learn to cook and fill their shelves with books they had both read. They could get married and tell stories about that fateful Saturday when they met in that club on that dance floor. They could dance together and pretend, the gleam in their eyes not from tears, but possibility.

On Saturdays they would meet at the club, and they would dance, tying a knot of limbs and promises; forgetting, and being in love.

Then on Sunday they would sleep in, wishing there was more than air beside them in their beds. Wishing they could be together in the real world, without the darkness or strobing lights, where the only secondary heartbeat was their lover pressed close, and not pounding music. On Sundays they would wake and they would return to their separate worlds. Not speaking, not letting anyone know.

And they would both begin to count down to the next Saturday night. And they would both pretend that they weren't also counting the Saturdays they had left.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I really am. <3


End file.
